Posts Tagged ‘humorous observations’

I thought I could wait you guys out and someone would deliver up a wildlife cam for our shared enjoyment…but no. Not quite.

Turns out you’re a far more hardened bunch than I realized. Guess I’d better bone up on my passive resistance techniques or try another approach. How does regret hit you?

Take a gander at the Dozer-based chaos that wasn’t caught on film. Exhibit A is this venture into a bag of vacuum cleaner-based garbage (almost entirely composed of black dirt and hair) in the pursuit of an empty Styrofoam container and what was probably an eggshell or papaya skin.

***groan***

At least the vacuum cleaner was still nearby…

He almost looks like he's laughing.

Note the excessive amount of hair contained in the rifled through garbage. I have an endless problem with the furry beast, especially since summer (and occasional 90-degree days) have come. I brush him…really, I do…but it doesn’t seem to help. I suppose with dog grooming courses I could make some real traction, but I already have far too many “careers” and irons in the fire to start down that road.

He has no shame.

Or maybe you would have preferred to see him tear through these snacks?

And this doesn’t even include the two croissants, loaf of bread, bag of uncooked Thai rice noodles, and god knows what else I cleaned up before I remembered to photograph it for you.

Nonetheless, the King is my boy, and food theft is the cost of doing business when you live with a Malamute. In fact, when he was a puppy I met a woman who told me she’d been reduced to keeping her trash can on top of her fridge.

Granted, not a proper crown, but I think he was pleased nonetheless.

In other news…there isn’t much other news.

I’m about to start writing a new book…but I think I’m going to put the venture up on Kickstart and see if someone (ahem) won’t help me make ends meet while I do so. I have – as I mentioned – about five side businesses, but I would honestly pare my life down to just writing fiction (and of course this blog, which by the way is now four years old. Happy Birthday, blog! Sorry I’m such a neglectful parent. Thank god you don’t need food or you’d be dead.) if I could.

However, until that day comes, I’ll just continue freelance writing, giving hypnotherapy sessions, running workshops, helping out a local caterer, renting out my guest room to complete and total strangers (this is the first thing that’s going away as soon as I can swing it. Even though most everyone has been lovely, I really rather hate having other people in my house and having to fake like I’m thrilled they’re here. I would be a TERRIBLE bed and breakfast purveyor.) and selling drugs.

Just kidding on that last one, Mom and Dad. Selling drugs and having complete and total strangers sleep in your house don’t mix, so I went with the less dangerous (???) option.

So according to something I was for some now-forgotten reason (I think maybe it had to do with ferrets attacking human babies?) reading in Wikipedia: “In 2008, new research revealed that people with blue eyes have a single common ancestor. The authors concluded that the mutation may have arisen in a single individual in the Near East or around the Black Sea region 6,000-10,000 years ago during the Neolithic revolution. Scientists tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. ‘Originally, we all had brown eyes,’ said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen. ‘A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ‘switch,’ which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes.’”

Greetings all blue-eyed (distant, many of you) relatives!

That first blue eyed guy must’ve really freaked some people out. I have to imagine that back in the day something like that could lead to false idol worship or at least the gifting of a nice hut on the Black Sea.

That would be like some modern-day child being born with yellow cat eyes, all reflective and stuff. You know that would be all over CNN within hours.

Meanwhile, if you’re a white supremacist, you’ll enjoy this little tidbit: “A 2002 study found that blue eyes have become increasingly rare among Americans, with only one out of every six – 16.6 percent (22.4% of white Americans) of the total United States population having blue eyes.”

Actually, if you’re a white supremacist that fact will upset you, but it will no doubt add fuel to your insane fire, so there’s that. At the same time, if nature arbitrarily made pale, blue-eyed people once, no doubt it will keep doing it randomly despite the genetics or dark hair/skin/eyes of the parents…just maybe not as much as Hitler might have liked.

By the way, eye color has to do with melanin (the same stuff that determines your skin color.) Less melanin produces green, grey, hazel, or light brown eyes. Eyes with very little melanin appear blue.

Can you imagine the wake where this nightmare is featured?

In other completely unrelated news, if you love KISS®, you might be excited to learn about the option to be buried in the official KISS® Kasket, perfect for the die-hard KISS® fan…who has died.

That makes me laugh every time I read it. It’s so stupid, it’s rather hilarious.

Please note, I, for one, have no interest in being buried in a KISS® Kasket. Now a Hello Kitty casket (It must exist. Right???)? That’s another story…

These guys scared the hell out of me as a little girl.

So does “KISS®” stand for something?
Is that why it’s in all capital letters?
Keeping It Somewhat Screwy?

Keep it Simple Stupid?

Kooks In Strange Subterfuge?

Anyway, in order to provide a perfect trifecta of uselessness, I thought I’d do a solid for any paranoiacs in the house.

It seems that some years ago an editor at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists used wind data and a list of probable targets to calculate that Tierra del Fuego would be the last place on earth to be affected by radioactive fallout.

How’s that for ironic? Your best bet for toughing out the end of the world is in the land of fire, otherwise known as a rockpile off the southern tip of South America. Bring your polar fleece and down jackets. I haven’t been there (yet), but anyplace that close Antarctica can’t be warm.

Ushuaia, Argentina. Not a bad-looking place to wait out the end of the world...

But in case you have short term memory issues or don’t really care enough to remember the little incidentals about me or simply show up to look at the pretty pictures and don’t actually read anything…I am easily amused.

And I will proceed to prove that fact to you again in a moment.

But before I do, let me take you back to a time in the not-so-distant past. A time we thought the world was going to end because of some faulty computer programming written thirty-five years earlier.

A time when we all learned the word ‘hanging chads,’ something we now know to be a little scrap of paper that destroyed Al Gore’s soul, but left him an environmental guru (as well as inventor of the internet).

An era when a little boy named Elian showed up off the Miami coast clinging to an inner tube and captured America’s attention…shortly before being deported back to Cuba and spending the rest of his life bad-mouthing us, joining the Young Communist Union of Cuba, and currently training in Cuban military school. Remember Disneyworld, Elian? Do they have anything like that in Cuba? Mickey Mouse? Goofy? Space Mountain? Didn’t think so.

The era when O magazine first hit the stands, Katie Lee Gifford quit Regis and Kathie Lee, and AOL bought Time Warner, thus sealing both of their fates.

It was also, as you may recall or may just now be learning, a time when Jack Black did not suck.

In fact, he was pretty damn funny then, culminated by his somewhat ridiculous band (and related HBO show) Tenacious D. And there was an episode of Tenacious D that year where they meet their ‘biggest fan’ who has set up a website about them and seems rather obsessed – kind of like Mel on Flight of the Conchords (another great HBO show about a ridiculous band that you should be watching if you’re not already watching it.)

So anyway – and yes, I still remember the original point of this post and am slowly plodding toward it – this is the clip containing a character named Lee. To fill you in and spare you the lengthy version: They’ve met Lee the night before, checked out the website he set up dedicated to them, and become obsessed with him. Way to turn the tables on your stalker! Watch it and learn.

And that is relevant because of this rather hilarious ‘Muscle Milk’ ad (I’m not immediately familiar with Muscle Milk, but I have seen it for sale at the gym. I imagine it’s for babies who want to be really buff.) sent to me late last night, that is highly relevant because of its earnest celebration of the impending holiday known as Thanksgiving.

And because that guy is obviously Lee.

And because he vaguely reminds me of my friend’s boyfriend (kind of like how Bret of Flight of the Conchords reminds me of my other friend’s boyfriend.)

And because this is my first year of appreciating that Thanksgiving can be funny.

(And lastly, just in case you’re not already watching Flight of the Conchords, here’s one of their songs to get you started…)

Oh hell, it’s the holidays. It’s the season of giving. So in that spirit, here’s another one of my most favorite Flight of the Conchords bits:

You know when I’m down to my socks it’s time for business, that’s why they call it business socks…

Jermaine should have been on my list of freaky-looking dudes I have crushes on. If the show is accurate, he’s part Maori (because there’s an episode where they set up “New Zealand Town” in New York City and force him to play the Maori.)

p.s.

The entire time I’ve been compiling this for you, Fu Manchu has been nursing (and there really is no other word for it. There’s a strange, loud, and consistently-timed sucking noise emanating from his head) on my bathrobe. Now I’ve got to wash my bathrobe, Fu.

Thanks for nothing. Weirdo.

p.p.s.

So as to prove my point, there are little bits of bathrobe material caught under his nails.

Don’t commit any crimes, Fu, because those claws of yours are evidence magnets.

And does he look like a man capable of delivering a beat down onto a stranger’s two-year old child in a Georgia Wal-Mart?

Well, it should, because he did.

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. – Police say a 61-year-old man annoyed with a crying 2-year-old girl at a Walmart slapped the child several times after warning the toddler’s mother to keep her quiet.

A police report says after the stranger hit the girl at least four times, he said: “See, I told you I would shut her up.”

Roger Stephens of Stone Mountain is charged with felony cruelty to children. It was unclear if he had an attorney and a telehpone call to his home Wednesday was unanswered.

Authorities say the girl and her mother were shopping Monday when the toddler began crying. The police report says Stephens approached the mother and said, “If you don’t shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you.”

Authorities say after Stephens slapped the girl, she began screaming.

I think the saddest sentence of this article is the last one, because it highlights the audacity of arrogance: Here this man was bragging about his ability to shut up babies, and when given a chance (or seizing a chance…either way) to demonstrate his skill, he failed miserably and made the baby even MORE upset. And then he decided to applaud his failed efforts by tossing a saucy, “See, I told you I would shut her up,” out for all to hear.

But you didn’t, Roger. You didn’t shut her up, you made her scream more.

On the other hand, just looking at him, maybe he didn’t know the difference? Or maybe general screaming sounded more pleasant to him than whining for cookies? It stands to reason he hasn’t had much contact with kids. Or at least I hope he hasn’t.

At the same time, there is a silver lining to be had. Now I’m not saying the toddler deserved this, but let’s break it down objectively here:

1. Kids are annoying. You know they are. You’ve met kids. You may even have kids. In either case, I can guarantee you’ve been annoyed by kids. And if you haven’t? Watch two minutes of that “Nanny 911″ show (whatever it’s called where the British nanny comes and straightens out the hopeless, raising a brood of horrifically spoiled brat parents) and prepare to be ANNOYED. Look, I’m not picking on kids: We were all kids once. We were all annoying. I’m not saying they’re ALWAYS annoying and don’t have their cute or charming moments, I’m just saying that a screaming two-year old – no matter how you slice it – is annoying.

2. In a way, Roger Stephens, Wal-Mart shopper and occasional looney toon, was doing this toddler a favor. The next time she sees a face like that? She’ll know what to do: Shut up and get the hell out of Dodge as fast as humanly possible. There’s no need to lecture this little one on ‘good touch’ or ‘bad touch’ or ‘getting a funny feeling about people.’ Just remind her about that time she was at Wal-Mart, and was physically assualted by a stranger, and she’s good to go.

3. In my opinion, any time you enter a Wal-Mart you really are on your own. All bets are off. Never wanted to see a 400-pound woman in a halter top? Too bad, because there’s one waiting for you by the toilet paper. Have no desire to be hit on by a toothless man in his 80s? That’s a shame, because there’s one hovering around the mangos hoping to pretend that he doesn’t know whether they’re a fruit or a vegetable in order to extract unnecessary cooking advice from you as part of a poorly constructed come-on. Don’t want to be bitten by a pygmy rattlesnake? Well, as we’ve all learned, stay out of Wal-Mart, because you are shooting your odds way up, baby.

And as for you, Roger Stephens (whose name I keep typing as Gary Stephens for some unknown reason)?

I can’t wait to see you making the talk show circuit once you get let out of jail. I’m sure there’s someone somewhere that’s interested in your views on child psychology and will extend your 15 minutes just that much more! Yay for America!

I’ve been having these strange episodes every day around 3pm where I become so exhausted I have to nap. And I never nap.

In fact, I think there’s a whole blog post about how much I hate napping.

But my body doesn’t care that I hate napping. It just goes into full shut down like a laptop with a worn out battery. Basically, my body starts an automatic hibernation process and refuses to take no for an answer.

So anyway, I’m presuming that’s some lingering after effect of last week’s e. Coli nightmare, and some type of recuperating/healing…and thus that’s not the weird thing I’m referencing in the title.

The weird thing is that I was sitting outside yesterday trying to get my 12 pages done (I’ve upped my daily quota on my book to 12 pages so that I can absolutely be done next Friday and then immediately get down to the business of editing), and I suddenly realized that I was falling asleep and had to shut my eyes for a minute. Okay, that’s not weird either, that’s the ‘new normal,’ but the weird thing is coming. I swear it is.

So I was on my stomach on the lawn chair and fell asleep in one of those light, still kind of aware of what’s going on around you ways – although to my shock, I later realized that I managed to burn through an hour like that – and heard a noise that sounded like something in my beach bag might’ve fallen over. Since my computer was there, perched semi-precariously in the bag, I propped myself up on my elbows to see what was going on.

It looked like this. Except it's beak was pointed at the sky.

Everything looked normal EXCEPT about two feet from my head, sitting on the concrete was a robin. And without my glasses on, I can’t see jack sh*t, and so my brain pasted the face of my dog on the face of this robin. Generally speaking, my dog’s face isn’t terribly descriptive. It’s bright white with two little beady eyes (they’re a beautiful amber color, but let’s be honest here: In proportion to the size of his skull, they’re kind of small and thus I feel ‘beady’ is an accurate description) and a big black nose and sometimes a pink-tongued smile. But not always. And the non-smiling version was what seemed to be looking at me from this bird’s face.

So I sat there and ‘looked’ at that for a while (which was rather surreal), and wondered if this was some kind of strange spiritual messenger and why had it taken the form of a hybrid between my dog and a bird, and then decided that enough was enough and I needed to get my glasses and see what was really going on here, because even if it was just a common robin, why wasn’t it flying away?

So I sat up slowly and reached over and got my glasses and the whole time the robin just sat there, literally within reaching distance, and I restored my vision and realized it had it’s beak straight up in the air. It was a small robin, and it’s chest was orange-ish with lots of brown spots all over it. (And in my hunt for a suitable likeness online, I have learned it was a juvenile robin.)

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